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No, fans aren't 'racist' if they're unbothered about Ben/Phastos, it's simply a lacklustre ship. We are barely into 2022 and I see a worrying trend among fans of Marvel Studios/The MCU claiming that any fan not fully supporting one particular 'ship in The MCU is a racist. Wow! How come? Well this latest stan Twitter row is due to recent MCU movie Eternals, which was only released two months ago. Some more vocal fans of The MCU are currently claiming that fans who don't care about new couple, Phastos/Ben, are racist. They claim that fans have shown more support to the recent Loki show on Disney Plus than they have to Phastos/Ben in the Eternals movie, claiming it's because Loki is white while Phastos and Ben are not (the actors are Black and Lebanese respectively). The same fans claim that MCU Loki has more fans generally than Phastos and his walk-on-character-husband named Ben. (Well, obviously? Loki has been a fan favorite for ten years. ...

[Image description: Ben and Phastos outside their residence on Earth, one of the most used images for the Disney couple.] Ben: the Eternal's Laura Barton I wanted to do a short review of the character Ben in Eternals because he's in my wheelhouse being gay and MENA and also because he's LITERALLY the first named character played by a MENA actor in the MCU since Iron Man 1's Ho Yinsen and the Ten Rings. Which was a long ass time ago. So, in the same year as the first Muslim characters to appear onscreen since 2008's Iron Man 1 , we also got a side character (an upgrade from a walk on, I guess?) in Ben Stoss, the partner to one of the Eternal's main characters. I'm reviewing Ben only, by the way. I'm not reviewing the movie as I remain unmoved by it and honestly don't care. I am Eternals-ambivalent... possibly leaning into averse because it's Disney. The reason I feel this way is because of how Disney has treated us queer fans ...

  Image description: Supervillains clockwise from top left, Iron Man 1 (2008), The Boys TV (2020),  Batman vs. Superman Dawn of Justice (2016), and  Wonder Woman 1984 (2020). Please note the frequent use of Yellow Filter. Muslim Supervillains: A tired stereotype in the superhero genre. - I realised I haven't yet written about British Muslim actor, activist and all round great person, Riz Ahmed , appearing in a superhero movie. Of course as soon as I thought about his character in Venom (2018), I remembered that Ahmed is playing a supervillain, a bad guy; which is a typecast all too common for Muslim and MENA actors. So I decided to list all the times Muslim and Muslim background actors (also referred to as SWANA and/or MENA, which stands for South West Asia and North Africa, and Middle East and North Africa) have been given the role of 'supervillain' in live action superhero movies. Spoiler: it's a lot.  It's also more times than any Muslim actors have appeared...

  MENA background characters in superhero media: Who did it better, Disney Plus or Netflix? Surprising no one, it wasn't Disney; even the bog standard MENA stereotype is the most/only instance Disney has shown MENA in the MCU since Iron Man 1, thirteen years ago. Let's compare the nameless MENA point by point. Disney first: Falcon and Winter Soldier (2021) Marvel Studios on Disney Plus, minus points for: Racist yellow filter Meaningless dialogue that add nothing to the MENA characters Praising American military = minus 3 points to FATWS/Disney (I could list more but let's stick with the main issues)  Next up,  Netflix: Jupiter's Legacy (2021) Millarworld on Netflix,  points added for: No racist yellow filter used Meaningful discussion is had Character is shown in additional background scenes of the episode = plus 3 points to Jupiter's Legacy/Netflix As far as crumbs go toward any MENA rep, Netflix's Jupiter's Legacy won thi...